


Legacy

by luna_plath



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: ADWD spoilers, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 10:26:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1144863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luna_plath/pseuds/luna_plath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had maintained a slight distance from her to preserve her honor, but Maestor Aemon’s words came back to him: <i>what is honor compared to a woman’s love?</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Legacy

**Author's Note:**

> Written for **gameofships** on tumblr, the prompt was "illness."

The door to Sansa’s solar opened with a faint creak, but no one stirred in the shadowy chamber, not even the small frame curled up under a fur by the fire. 

Jon carefully closed the door behind him, wrapping the little boy up and taking him in his arms. A noise made him turn, but it was just Sansa, a thick quilt pulled around her shoulders, her auburn hair shinning in the firelight.

“I was just taking him to bed,” Jon whispered.

“He always wanders in the middle of the night.”

Looking down at the child cradled in his arms, a smile crept onto his face. Jon had intended to take the boy to his nursery but he supposed the child would sleep more soundly with Sansa.

She pulled back the nest of furs and blankets to make room on the bed, sliding over so there was adequate space for the three of them—Sansa, Jon, and Eddard. Tucked between them, their son slept on, undisturbed. His gray eyes were closed in sleep but nothing could hide the boy’s head of dark curls that poked out from beneath the blankets.

Jon smoothed the covers over Eddard’s sleeping form, his hand resting on his son’s shoulder. Sansa placed her hand over his, the two of them watching their child breathe, a normal moment for people who could have been a family.

He waited until Sansa fell asleep before leaving. Her hand was still stretched out, open and waiting for him to take it. Jon left as quietly as he’d arrived.

\--

Eddard was born three years ago, just as the bitter cold of the long winter had begun to abate. During the time of Sansa’s pregnancy a new Queen had arrived in Westeros, the Wall had fallen, and a host of men had died to protect the people of the North. When spring arrived there was no Nights Watch to speak of, meaning that Sansa could raise their child in relative peace.

The moons before Eddard’s birth were volatile, bringing death, starvation, and freezing temperatures. Jon felt a crippling sense of guilt for laying with Sansa and resulting in her pregnancy, he could not bear the thought of any boy or girl bearing the name _Snow_ in a world that was unjustifiably harsh toward bastard children. At the time he thought that no respectable Northman would acknowledge the child he’d gotten on Sansa as a true Stark.

The plague that the White Walkers brought down on Westeros drove all thoughts of a happy future from his mind, and while Queen Daenerys and her dragons managed to save the Seven Kingdoms from total decimation, the same could not be said for the countless souls who lost their lives in the struggle. The wildlings that lived through the winter had begun to repopulate the northern-most lands, but the divide between the free folk and the northerners would be difficult to mend.

Winterfell was returned to Sansa and himself, with no trace of Arya, Bran, or Rickon to be found. The Queen named him a true Stark and the Northerners recognized Eddard as Sansa’s rightful heir—Jon had everything he had dreamed of and never expected to receive, but at the price of his family and innumerable others.

He’d wanted to be a Stark, he’d wanted children of his own and a lordship to give them upon his death. In the end, he’d gotten both nothing and everything.

\--

It started among the stable-hands and errand boys, the heavy cough, clammy skin, and spells of fainting—a sickness that Jon had never seen in the North before. Sam attended to them as best he could, but he hadn’t learned to treat such an illness at the Citadel. Ravens arrived with news of a strange new illness taking hold of King’s Landing and Oldtown, all the while the condition of their servants deteriorated. 

Jon sent letters to White Harbor, Last Hearth and Bear Island, each one warning of this new sickness. For every three men who contracted the disease, two of them died, with no treatments available except to make the sufferers more comfortable in their last hours. Sam suggested barring Winterfell to visitors and closing the castle’s gates until the illness had burned itself out and Jon adopted his suggestion at the first opportunity.

Sansa would not allow Eddard to go anywhere but their chambers or the godswood, which displeased their son greatly but Jon thought it a smart idea. Some of the serving girls took to wearing perfumed handkerchiefs tied around their face, covering their nose and mouth, an idea that Sam thought ingenious. It wasn’t long before every man and woman in the castle had a cloth tied around their face, a strategy that seemed to reduce the number of new cases, though privately Jon wasn’t sure if it were due to the cloth or to the paltry number of people who had yet to contract the disease. 

Most of the servants were too afraid to touch the bodies of the dead, so a group of men, Jon included, volunteered to collect them and burn the remains. Seeing their Lord help care for the deceased in person seemed to calm the residents of the castle. 

Sansa looked him over each evening, anxious that he would become ill after coming into such close contact with those who had succumbed to the fainting sickness. She burned sweet-smelling herbs in the fire and wiped at his hands and face with a fresh cloth that had been soaked in lavender oils, to cleanse him, she said.

“I’m fine, Sansa. Truly. I would tell you if I felt ill,” Jon assured her, though he was touched at her concern for him.

Before the birth of their son he never would have expected Sansa to care for him in such a way, but when the Others were terrorizing the North and the days had grown so short as to only last a matter of hours they had grown especially close. There were nights when he fully expected to freeze in his sleep, or to wake the next day, in darkness and bitter cold, only to die at the hands of an inhuman, icy monster. Sansa and himself began to share the same tent, their bodies huddled beneath the furs for warmth. It wasn’t until Daenerys arrived on the back of a dragon that Jon allowed himself to have hope that they might survive, and by then he’d already lain with Sansa and put a babe inside of her.

Once they arrived back at Winterfell his actions overwhelmed him. Eddard Stark may not have been his father, but Jon had grown up with Sansa as siblings, and he could not escape the idea that he had shamed her in the worst way possible. Jon forced himself to forget about his feelings for Sansa, however painful the process, in order to be a better man. He wanted Eddard to grow to be as just and honorable as his namesake, despite the moral failings of his father.

\--

They were gathered in Sansa’s chambers, his stomach sinking below his knees as she told them the horrible news.

“He was playing in the godswood. Eddard was playing with Ghost, but he just stopped moving, he was so still, and then he had a spell,” Sansa’s voice trembled, tears gathering in the corner of her eyes. “He just collapsed. I ran over to him and his skin was so cold, he was wearing plenty of furs but his skin felt almost…damp.”

“Clammy,” Sam said, placing the back of his hand to Eddard’s brow.

“My little boy,” Sansa cried, covering her face with her hands while tears streamed down her cheeks.

Jon put his arms around her, his stomach threatening to empty itself on the floor while he listened to Sam instruct them on Eddard’s treatment.

“It’ll be best for him to stay in your chambers, my Lady, since they’re the warmest rooms in the castle. That will keep him from growing too cold. Eddard will need lots of rest and quiet with as little disturbance as possible. Can that be arranged?”

“Of course,” Jon said hollowly, thinking of Bran in his sickbed all those years ago.

“He probably won’t be conscious for some time, but he must eat and drink. Prepare oats and honey but have them very finely ground, you can feed him by massaging his throat until he swallows, and give him water by soaking a rag and letting the water drip past his lips.”

Sam put his hand on Jon’s shoulder, his face grave but unafraid. “I promise I’ll take care of him, my Lord. I won’t let you down.”

\--

Eddard’s sickness stretched on for three days, with Sansa and himself taking turns by their son’s bedside. They kept the boy in Sansa’s chambers, since they were the warmest in the castle and Eddard’s skin was always so cool and damp to the touch.

Jon spent both his days and nights by his son’s bedside, praying for Eddard’s recovery while feelings of uselessness overcame him. He’d fought white walkers and wildlings, he’d lived through countless battles and a mutiny but he could think of no defense against his son’s sickness. He had felt the same way when Bran had fallen from that tower. Sansa wore the same look that he remembered from all those years ago, grief mixed with a tremendous anxiety.

Once Eddard reached the fourth day without waking Sam insisted that the boy would survive.

“But how can you be sure?” Sansa asked, dark circles showing under her eyes. She had hardly slept since Eddard had taken ill.

“The illness progresses in one of two ways: either the person passes within the first three days, usually from difficulty breathing, or they make it beyond the three day period, after which they undergo a slow but sure recovery.”

Sam gestured to the boy’s bedside, “May I?”

“Of course,” Jon said, motioning for him to step forward. 

Sam pressed the back of his hand to Eddard’s brow, then the base of his wrist. “His skin is warmer to the touch, and his heart feels stronger.”

“Thank the gods,” Sansa said.

Jon took her hand and squeezed it, hoping that a simple touch from him would communicate what he could not. _Our boy is safe,_ he thought. She squeezed back.

“Sam, would you mind sitting with him for a while?”

“It’ll be no trouble, my Lord,” he said, pulling up a stool to Eddard’s bedside.

Jon thanked him and led Sansa out of the room, placing his arm around her shoulders. He’d never seen her look so worn, not even when they were half-starved and living in a tent of animal skins.

“Do you think Eddard will be alright?” she asked as they walked the short distance to his solar.

“Yes,” Jon answered truthfully. “I trust Sam, and I’ve seen the disease myself. He’s strong, our boy.”

For the first time in days, a smile tugged at the corners of Sansa’s lips. She wiped at her eyes, saying, “I hope so.”

Two servants were tidying up his chambers, not that they needed much cleaning with him gone these past few days. Jon instructed them to draw a bath for Lady Sansa and to brew some pine tea, hoping to calm her nerves while their son recovered.

Jon took a seat by the fire and, not wanting to let go of Sansa’s hand, tugged her closer. 

“Come here,” he said, pulling her into the seat with him. She sat on his lap and he put his arms around her, closing his eyes, the fire crackling while Sansa buried her face in his neck.

They sat there like that, holding each other. They had almost lost the most precious thing to either of them simply by chance, and what if it had been Sansa instead of Eddard? Truthfully, Jon knew that he would be just as devastated. He had maintained a slight distance from her to preserve her honor, but Maestor Aemon’s words came back to him: _what is honor compared to a woman’s love?_

“I am so sorry,” Jon whispered, holding onto her fiercely. “I was afraid of shaming you, and it took nearly loosing our son for me to realize I have it all wrong.”

Sansa pressed her cheek to his, her skin perfectly smooth and damp with tears. 

“We still have time,” she said, her hand cupping his cheek. “You and me and Eddard, plenty of time.”

Jon smiled against her hand, knowing that he’d been fool and counting himself blessed to have Eddard and Sansa in his life. She kissed him, causing his eyes to flutter closed while a heady, thundering warmth settled in his limbs.

**Fin**


End file.
